Jill Scott: “I Really Feel Like I Got In Front Of The Microphone Naked” (EXCLUSIVE)

Singer Jill Scott is back and better than ever with her fourth solo album “The Light Of The Sun” and she’s been doing better than ever.

GlobalGrind caught up with the busy R&B singer/actress to talk about her inspiration behind “The Light Of The Sun,” her personal life and of course, her acting career.

Check out the exclusive interview below!

GlobalGrind: We had the pleasure of checking out your New York show a few weeks ago, the house was packed with every media outlet and famous faces. You were missed over these three and a half years. You did that with your last 3 albums, taking some time off in between, was “Light of the Sun” literally birthed over the course of the last three years?

Jill Scott: Has it really been 3 years?

It has, GlobalGrind counted.

It doesn’t seem that way to me. It really doesn’t because once the album comes out I go on tour for it for a while and then it takes me maybe a year, it took me a year and a half to do this record. I guess it has been, but yeah it’s my process, I tour real hard.

I do as much of the world as I can and then I come back and decompress. I come back and do simple things. I had to change my life for awhile. It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling but I have to replenish my spirit because when you are on stage, that’s what you do, you give real hard and you hope to receive in return and most of the time, I can say I do.

Do the simple things inspire a project like “Light of the Sun” or is it the touring and the process with the last project that inspires you and gets you back in the studio?

It’s the simple things that inspire me. Also I left my old label which was a boutique label and that inspired me. I felt like there was a new freedom in me. My son inspired me, he gave me a fire in my belly and in my back that makes me stronger. I went through some things, I went through some hurt that I didn’t think I was going to make it through and that gave me strength because I thought I was dying. I don’t think I’ve hurt as badly, no I know I haven’t hurt that bad and I thought I was dying but I didn’t. It was just an emotional hurt and I had to get my head in the game, get my head back and I had to reclaim my heart and all of that just made me feel stronger and made me want to be in the studio and want to give more and express more and get it out, get it out of my body.

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So you definitely would say that “Light of the Sun” and the process of recording it was a good form of therapy?

Absolutely, that is the revealing of oneself and sometimes when you are really really blessed and lucky like Marvin Gaye and “What’s Going On,” it’s the revealing of ourselves. It’s a revealing of humanity and that’s what the goal is. That’s what the hope is, as I reveal myself and the crosses that I bear, the strengths that I’ve acquired that somebody else will feel empowered and say I am human too and and it is OK to be wherever I have been, but I can continue to grow. I hope that people will be strengthened and that someone will cry real hard because you need it.

You mentioned empowering people through your music. Songs like “Golden” and “Hate on Me” uplift people, will we see that in “Light of the Sun?”

Maybe. When I wrote “Golden” I don’t know if I was thinking about if it was going to do something for someone else, I wish I could be that poetic. I was just writing and taking my stance and defining for myself how I was going to live my life. I was in the middle of a very bad place with my ex-husband and I decided I was going to claim myself and claim my freedom and that’s all that it was, but it turned out to be empowering for other people. “Hate on Me” I felt the same way. I’d gone online and people were so cruel and I couldn’t quite understand it. Not only to me, but cruel to others. I thought, ‘wow it must be so sad to be that hateful behind closed doors.’ You’re not even bold enough and brave enough to have your own feelings with your picture on it.

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How did you come up with the title of “Light of the Sun?”

“The Light of the Sun” it just came from me being free handed and free styling. I allowed my mind to go and my pen to follow and that means it’s revealing. Because I’m me, there is some warmth there and I really feel like I got in front of the microphone naked. Not that I was physically naked, it’s not literal. I feel like I opened myself up and allowed the light of the sun to hit my guts.

Your acting career has been amazing, can we expect to see you in any more films or television series in the near future?

I certainly hope so. I’ve been reading with a lot of the networks and discussing the possibility for television. I just want the right thing and to do the best job at whatever the right thing is. So patience is a virtue and it’s stressful because I enjoy acting so much. I’ve been acting for 20 years and it suits me. It feels good on me. I hope to get better at it all the time but I’m just waiting for the right thing. That’s it, no more, no less.